Nut’s to Newton’s Cradle
Copyright by Dave Lassut 2011
Published by Wonky Books at Smashwords
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Important note: Don’t forget to laugh.
EPUB ISBN: 978-1-907630-76-7
EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-907630-77-4
STATEMENTS CONCERNING EXECUTIVE STRESS
‘There is nothing better for easing executive stress than sucking 27 eggs on the trot.’
‘And then eating the calcium rich shells’.
Oscar Wilde
‘Rugby players do it parties, and ‘they’ never get stressed’
‘Therefore. Rugby players make fine un stressed executives’.
Oscar Wilde
One day. Someone will write a really good executive stress book.
Nostradamus. (From the No1 Bestseller ... Prophesies that are dead certs!)
I am troubled with the latest prophesy! I keep saying Hisster, Hisster? One day, a Python will rule the world for a while! That’s my interpretation of the Hiss bit. Ter? Ter? ... Tern! One day, a Python crossed with a Tern will rule the world, which will make it a Pyth-tern. Hmmmm? His name will be? Hmmm? I’m bored.
That wall’s a bit bare, so, I think I’ll make a Montage ... ah! That’s it. Montage! Montagepython! Monty! Python! Got it! One day, Monty Python will rule the world! That’s not bad from ‘Hisster’. Why do people keep telling me to get a proper job as I have too much time on my hands? Losers!
Nostradamus
Stress?! There’s nothing like women for curing stress, and I got loads because I was a romantic poet. The only thing was, when they all love you and ‘want’ you, it causes you big stress, and the irony is, you then need the very ones causing it in order to cure it. It’s a kind of nagging vicious circle. Thank God for malt whisky! Which I would like to recommend to Executives for stress cure that they can take whilst reading this magnificent work. My sexy sister Maggie, who drinks the whisky with me, thinks the same.
Robert (Rabbie) Burns.
The following poem was written with his sister Maggie, who was a sexy dancer and popular with men:
O, my luve is like a red red rose
That’s newly sprung in June
O, my luve is like a melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune
But my luve is really in a malt whisky bottle
Which I glug when I’m hiding up a windy highland fell
Because my lover’s discovered my other lover, who’s discovered my other ... ad infinitum (hic!)
And they’re all giving me complicated verbal stress, and I feel like I’m in hell
Och! I’m fed up of being a romantic poet/sexy dancer
That all the ladies/men like
I think I’ll change and become a haggis, or a boring kilt maker (I meant make haggises, not actually become one)
And tell each one, tae get on his or her bike
A NEW GENERATION OF STRESS BUSTING TOYS AND PASTIMES FOR EXECUTIVES
Devised by Frankie Lassut.
What’s stress? Easy: thinking (reacting) in a way that doesn’t serve your highest ideals or desires.
So, we think in what’s called ‘resistance’ i.e. what you don’t want, or what you believe you can’t have; in other words, negatively. And when you have created a baby monster, more attention to it can only make it grow. The bigger it gets, the more Prozac or whatever other chemicals there are, will be needed, not to tame the savage beast, but your reaction to it. Stress is therefore produced by negative thought, which then manifests as illness in the body.
But. We have executive toys to take the mind’s focus off whatever monster it is shouting ‘NO’ at, and give it a bit of respite. All I’ve done here is devise some refreshing new methods of doing just that, and giving the executive’s battered mind a chance to breathe and let the Universe sort out the problem … for that is the natural way of inner peace.
This little ditty may seem like lunacy, but remember, great things usually come from ‘crazy’ ideas, from crazy people; so open your mind, and let’s take an unstressful flight of zany fan(ta)cy.
Executives, bosses, etc suffer from stress, from many causes. The usual cause being, ‘if disobedient workers fail to do things that make the executive feel good, and therefore be happy’. Feeling good is THE one purpose of a human; that is, to ‘feel’ good. This is a job that should be done inside the person, but all too often that task is given to the outside world, which may seem reluctant to fulfil what’s needed.
Stress is the opposite of feeling good, and is therefore undesirable; and can lead to illness, if it is constant.
Think about it. Staff/workers usually don’t like bosses or managers, because they make them feel bad, which is the opposite of their desire. But. There wouldn’t be anything to do for staff if it wasn’t for executives, bosses etc, and so, ‘they’, the bosses, ‘deserve’ to feel good (as does everyone of course). Most of the time though, this feel good factor tends to ‘F(u)acktor’ the worker people up by causing ‘them’ stress in order to make the boss feel good (there are many books on this subject, some under the humour section; we like to ‘laugh’ at pain.
Yet, some bosses feel good if they can make workers feel bad, and they maybe only want to make workers feel bad if they, the workers, make ‘them’ feel bad. There are more vicious circles here than in a burning hula-hoop competition.
I experienced that a few times, the most memorable being some years back when my foreman said to me “If you’re happy here, I’m doing MY job wrong”... Hmmm? He was serious too. He wanted to make me feel bad even though I tried to make him feel good. It’s a good job he pretended to like me deep down in his soul. God bless you Tommy ‘I’, it was fun.
***
THE MAGIC OF CAR BOOT SALES
I, who consider myself classless (I’m a soul, we’re all souls) went to a working and ‘sub class’ car boot sale one morning to get back my bike ‘again’ (my car is there, but it’s spread across 35 traders ...), and I was inspired, looking at some ‘paintings’ to come up with the idea of some new, stress busting ‘executive toys’, which I think are valid, and will probably end up being manufactured (please cut me in). They include:
Old masters
Fankites
Incubators
Kung Fu Darts
And many more items to delight you and drop those stress levels using the medium of ‘stress busting’ laughter.
I say working class and sub class car boot sales uninsultingly, because that is what they are, but, like anything else in life, how do I know they were working and sub anyway?
The answer is, because I’ve seen the ‘contrast’, and, that’s what we’re taught isn’t it? Mrs Thatcher tried to make us classless, but gave us the opportunity to be even more class aware, which we snatched with hungry hands.
We had a song at work, years ago.
‘The working class can kiss my ass
I’ve got a manager’s job at last’
The car boot sale I usually go to is a multinational affair, where you get offered 20p in several different accents for every item you have, no matter how much it’s worth.
“Tutankhamun’s death mask?!”
“Ahhhh! Tventy peee mate!”
“Twenty Peee? No mate. Fiver!”
“No noooo. Tventy peee, and my vife! Look! She goot! Only have sixteen baby, good for nuther ten yet. Comeonnnnn mate! You no you vont her! Vife, get here! You going viss man so I can have Tooty Karma mask for car radiates!”
The middle classes and the upper classes have car boot sales too, but these are in secret locations, because you don’t want working class and sub class people there, do you? (Well, not unless you want your car washing).
The Uppers don’t, that’s for sure, which is why I’ve never been allowed to marry into Royalty (even though the Prince said yes. Damn!)
Middle class car boot sales are slightly, ‘obviously’ up market from their lower end cousins, and tend to trade expensive designer gear and things that would maybe be sold for 20p at the lower end boot sales. They also, because goods usually cost large sums, tend to use solar powered card machines, with wireless connections to the world’s banks for their transactions. This is because it has been known for the lower end shoppers to come into the private field in disguise, snatch things, such as wodges of cash; and make a run for it. Sometimes they get away, but as a few of the members have lurchers which don’t mind what they chase and bite ... most infiltrators get caught, worried, and made to hand the money or goods back; after which the dogs can feed, and even have some bones for later on.
Items under a thousand pounds are rarely seen, and so even if a lower end person with a credit card happened along, the machine wouldn’t entertain a mere £250.00 limit.
The Upper class car boot sales are always on sprawling private estates. The Rolls Royce and Daimler, Lamborghini and Ferrari boots are full of almost priceless antiques and real Old Masters, expensive diamonds, rare objects, etc. Once, I’m told, there was a large Rolls turned up with what looked like a bag lady and her rag covered friend. They were trying to sell what looked to all the world like the Crown Jewels .... fake ‘obviously’, although the glittering of the paste diamonds and other stones, in the Sunlight, was fairly blinding. The sceptre was like the top of one of those magic, jewelled wizard’s staffs that blaze with white light when the Sun hits it, or when they’re zapping a Dark Lord baddie. The tramps were removed and the car was reported as stolen; the worthless jewels were put in a skip.
It was strange, because a lot of the car booters and the security who threw the lady out were invited to a Royal Garden Party some weeks later, and the Queen ignored every one of them. The butler also served them fish and chips and Vimto, while everyone else feasted on gourmet delicacies such as caviar, and gulls eggs with truffle, and fine wines and champagne. They never went home of course, and now, each morning, they fight over the one tap and sink in the tower. Although it’s hard to wash your face when you’re wearing an iron mask.
Upper class car boot sales are usually interrupted by many bangs, as the pheasants are driven over by the car booters. The guns on display aren’t actually for sale though they’re personal. You know, the bespoke tailor made pairs of Purdey's and Holland and Holland's. There are usually a few shouts after a wave of pheasants have attempted to escape the guns. Shouts such as “Aw bladdy hell!” as someone gets hit on the head by a dead bird, which is followed by another “Aw bladdy hell!” the dog upsetting the goods table as it comes to retrieve. Or shouts such as “Aw bladdy hell! That’s another dint on the old Roller’s roof!”, as the lifeless bird succumbs to gravity. Followed by “Aw bladdy hell! Look at the old Roller’s roof now!” as the dog mounts the car to retrieve the bird. Followed by the occasional “Aw bladdy hell! That’s not a bladdy pheasant!”, as someone gets hit on the head by a lifeless heron, shot by a trigger happy gun, or someone too short sighted to actually own a pair of Purdey’s, or Holland and Holland’s.
I noticed at ‘my’ particular sale at a secret location (to the police) that there were a number of traders selling ‘prints’ of Old Master paintings, in fine real gold paint gilt frames.
It made me think. You see, if it has been a stressful day at the office/exec suite, why not do what many famous actors and singers do to chill out; people like Gene Hackman, Tony Bennett, Gary Burghoff (Radar O Reilly), to name but a few. They paint you see, because it’s relaxing, ahhhh, and creative, and pleasing, and therefore it banishes stress, Prozac, Valium and Ant Acids. It satisfies a lot of areas.
It can easily be done in an office too, and makes a change from putting practice and the click click click of those ‘mesmeric’ pendulum balls (Newton’s Cradle?), or one of those mesmeric divey dolphins on the steel pedestal. I think that those dolphins stress execs out even more than they mesmerise, because there are always a few at car boot sales. These have obviously been thrown in the bin by still stressed executives (who then return to the Prozac, Valium and ant acids?), and are then taken from the bin by staff car booters; they never miss anything anywhere that will maybe sell at a car boot sale; those 20p’s add up you know!
The only executives I can imagine not throwing them out are the ones who own or run marine land places where dolphins entertain the crowds. Each see and each saw could then be imagined as a pound each way (in the case of Blackpool and Birmingham etc Sealife Centres), or a dollar, in the case of American Marineland places (Russian or Japanese Marineland places don’t have them, as they tend to eat the entertainers). I reckon a Sealife Centre would go down a killer in Wales! (Bu Bum!)
Shouldn’t football Association executives do that? Have manager seesaw pendulum desk toys, and if the manager loses a game, throw the toy out AND then ‘eat the manager’?
It would work in the Tropical Rain Forest FA, where the manager’s grimacing head could be miniaturised and made into a mesmeric seesaw on a rock or wood pedestal? Or on ‘Robinson Crusoe type Island Football Associations’, where they actually ‘would’ eat the manager. See, not so daft is it, really. There’s one whole lotta sense in there. Head-hunter Exec toys PLC (That actually had big business connotations).
So. Grand Master painting. It would actually help if the executive (you?) could paint, but, it isn’t essential see, and I’m not talking about painting by numbers either. That has too many lines the painter has to paint within, which makes the result look patchy (like ‘in the box’ type thinking). Mind you, they could then get their wife to join in the relaxing fun and make a pattern, which she could then turn into a continental quilt cover. The exec could then say to his or her young son/daughter/dog “Look son/daughter/fido, Thomas the Tank Engine or the X men are ok, but yours can’t stand up to my Rembrandt! Ha ha!” There would be no need for Prozac, Valium or Ant Acids that day.
But no! My idea is this. Painting By Brushstrokes. You get the paints and an easel and some brushes. Best get the cheap stuff from The Works, Publisher’s Outlet, and then get some Grand Master Prints from a car boot sale (offer 20p each). All you need do then is paint over the actual print, and, if you do exactly what the original master did (you can see it, especially after a de stressing flagon or three of wine, which is what the Old Masters did), there will be no patchwork edges, the lines will flow, and the result will be ‘magnifico’!
If you’re a good blagger, you could even sell it at somewhere like Christies, who hold a car boot sale in their back yard every Sunday.
PS: I’m getting stressed spelling out Valium, Prozac, and Ant Acids each time I need to mention them! (the exclamation mark there is a bad sign)...so, I’m going to use one of those things where you use the letters... what they called? Damn!
Now, it will be, BBVP&AAs, (Bye Bye Valium ... you get the jist?) which is almost as bad, but not quite.
***
The Incubator.
What’s a better de-stresser and Prozac, Valium, and Ant Acid banisher, than a calming organic executive toy, and a little ‘miracle’ thrown in for good measure?
The incubator will provide that.
You may think this sounds ridiculous (but watch this space).
Firstly, something troublesome which would make a lousy exec BBVP & AAs de stress toy. The human egg incubator. This is a womb sized contraption where the fertilised female egg is put in, and the foetus grown on site in a specialised crèche. This will save time and money on maternity leave, and the mother would only be allowed to go stare at the incubator during bait times.
Eminent person Mr Stephen Hawkins described this very thing years ago in his book, the Universe in a Nutshell. He said that babies could be grown with brains twice the size to make them more intelligent (already happening apparently....not that anyone would notice)... if you can believe that.
I wrote to him and asked him why his head wasn’t twice the size of everyone else’s? He refused to get into a debate (yeah right).
My ‘version’ though is a little less harsh, and much much more sensible in a Well Being way. My ‘mind’ version, the chickadee (for want of a better name), is a little, nice to look at incubator, which sits on the stressed executive’s desk, containing a single ‘chicken’ egg.
I watch the secret millionaire on TV, and the male ones actually don’t know what eggs actually cost, or pints of milk etc (Mr Branson doesn’t either, so he says). So, an egg will cost about 30 pence here, or in America, I buck (couldn’t resist that). So, it isn’t going to cost you much.
Eggs contain intelligent life, and so, that life needs to be treated with love before birth, as it is sensitive to nice vibrations (it’s a vibration based Universe remember), so, a couple of times a day, take off the lid and talk nice to it i.e. pretend it’s a rival executive (there’s more sense in that statement than you may think; this is one of the reasons why I’m ‘goooood’).
The next thirty days is a great reminder about life’s miracle, and ‘meantime’ (there’s some more hidden wisdom for you, and it’s all part of a seminar). And then, a little fluffy cute chick emerges (unless you get the larger version containing an ostrich egg, which are vicious, especially if you let it grow and then lead it into the busy canteen. Or if you put a crocodile egg in?). When you look through loving eyes at your new ‘friend’, you can say “Ahhhhhh! BBVP & AAs.
The cute little yellow fluffy ball (with a price on it’s head when it grows up and becomes a non cute ‘commodity’) will want to bond with you remember (mummy), which will last for a while. It will be like your own children, who bond with you for a few years, and then slowly learn to ‘hate’ you. Chickens are no exception (as are workers, lower managers, and rival execs etc). So, in order to bond correctly and enjoy some affection for a while (which is better then none...for it is better to have loved and lost then to have never loved at all? ... Codswallop actually, so, NO!), it may benefit you to make a suitable hat, or buy one, which looks like the red head wattle/comb of a chicken (a rubber glove from the cleaner is ok, but only if your chick is a bit ‘slow’). You can then communicate lovingly with your new friend/child.
What to do with it when it grows up and hates you?
This is where staff wellbeing comes in (BBVP & AAs); seriously. Many companies now are hiring ‘Well Being’ companies who take staff for walks in nature and fresh air (those wear on your arm computers are good here, so they can work and stress while chilling), so, it can save you lots of money if you have a toxic chemical works with lots of leaks; keep ‘them’ at their desk. And then, they can watch Wellbeing nature DVDs on their comps if they must, while their friend spray floral, and country meadow air freshener around them (they must do it in their ‘too long’ bait time though!).
Seriously. The chickens could then be put in a coup in the office backyard or ‘garden’ (big business now), and the staff could do the garden, and look after the work’s chickens. That means eggs and a serious chill time on land they have lovingly cared for and planted themselves.
Question: Is a chicken coup when chickens take over?
Ignore that. I can’t believe I actually said it.
If your building, and therefore the garden is near a chav estate, each morning, the beer cans can be collected from the garden and re cycled. From the right place, you can get a penny a can, which will help pay for chickenfeed (same as what you pay your staff! Which makes you feel good! So, that’s fine). Sounds daft? But so do lots of good ideas.
There is a small patch of land down the road from where I live. The council dug it over, and then planted sunflowers and other nice plants in it. I was going to do some time lapse photography, because, within a day, the sunflowers were broken, the plants were pulled up, and the place was soon covered in cans, bottles, and litter ... that was the result of ‘lack of wellbeing’ in the perpetrators, who have to destroy to feel good. The place is now overgrown again, and covered in rubbish; and people complain because of rats they see (all the rats are saying is ‘thank you for your filth’).